


Mirror, Mirror

by emphatically_bisexual



Category: Six of Crows Series - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: F/M, First Time, Kaz doesn't have flashbacks, Masturbation, Past Sexual Abuse, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Smut, aged-up, dare I say... very nearly canon compliant?, if you can't touch each other..., not graphic but does acknowledge Inej's past, pre-SOC, so not underaged
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-01
Updated: 2021-02-01
Packaged: 2021-03-18 18:41:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29122839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emphatically_bisexual/pseuds/emphatically_bisexual
Summary: Kaz loses his mind, Inej watches, both get off. Choose the POV you'd rather read, or read both and compare.
Relationships: Kaz Brekker/Inej Ghafa
Comments: 10
Kudos: 81
Collections: Kaz and Inej Fanfics





	1. Kaz

She was there when he arrived. Kaz didn’t know how she got in his rooms still—he changed the locks on the windows, rotated the locations of the furniture, sealed and re-sealed the spaces between the roof and the rafters, and she always still was here waiting for him when he arrived back, ready to report to him about whatever secrets she had collected that night. He knew she enjoyed the game of it, getting back in through a new route. The times when he arrived before her brought a disappointment he didn’t allow himself to feel. Disappointment would be admitting that his room in the Slat was not made a home because he had made it with his own two hands, or because he had the only key to the door, or it was dry and safe, but because this was where his Wraith was.

He didn’t see her. She was in the shadows somewhere, waiting to make sure that it was him before she revealed herself. He locked the door to the uppermost floor.

He stripped off his gloves first, and before he could think better of it, his coat, vest, and shirt, into a heap on the ground beside his desk. Tonight he felt impulsive. Kaz Brekker never acted from impulse. He calculated. He schemed. He limped into the bedroom, pausing to lean in the open door to pull off his boots. It had been a long night. He didn’t often come back to the Slat bruised and battered anymore, but that didn’t mean that he didn’t arrive damned tired most nights. Running an empire of thieves took its own toll—mostly in late nights, standing too long on his bad leg, and smothering contempt so he could still look Per Haskell in the eye. Brick by brick. A long game. How many years had it been already? He didn’t feel young anymore, most of the time. He unbuckled his belt with one hand and leaned on his cane to step out of his trousers.

Inej was still there, somewhere. She was in the bedroom. She’d followed him. She would have a report to give him. He swayed slightly on his cane and shut his eyes to try to hear her. It was a small room; anyone else and he would be able to hear their breathing, know exactly where they stood, but not Inej. Inej, he could only feel her presence and her absence. He could make guesses from that about where she hid, and he was usually right. He braced himself slightly on his good leg and leaned his cane against the doorframe, then took a step away. That made him feel exposed in a way that standing in the middle of the room in his underclothes and socks couldn’t. His breath came out short and heavy, but he knew that it wasn’t from the exertion of the stairs, or the pain in his leg.

He didn’t try to hide his arousal. He’d felt the growing since he first entered his chambers and knew he wasn’t alone. Normally _this_ was only a problem in the morning, when he would wake up from dreams that always stayed dreams, but lately he had become too practiced at forcing his thoughts in whatever direction seemed least arousing at the time. She was his partner, his spider, his Wraith, his most trusted—his _only_ trusted ally. He couldn’t have her mistake him, think that his motives were… carnal. Especially not when it had been only two years that she had been free from the Menagerie, especially not when she was still not free of her indenture, Haskell’s name at the top of the contract but answering, in truth, only to Kaz himself. Especially not when, even if somehow she approached him, he knew he would never be able to fulfill expectations. He wouldn’t be able to bear the kind of contact that filled his dreams and haunted him when he woke.

Now he had revealed himself. He couldn’t stop to think about that. He could never go back. Maybe she would never trust him again, if she knew that _he knew she was here_. She would leave. It would be good for her. He could buy out her contract. He would find the money, somewhere. The imaginary Johannes Rietveld’s farm—sell it. He would buy her freedom from him. Haskell be damned. He’d lie, say that another spider could replace her. He could send her away.

He was tired, and reckless, and young. Twenty. He never really considered that he would make it out of his teens, but here he was. Nobody downstairs knew of the milestone. It wasn’t much to celebrate, and Dirtyhands wasn’t much for celebrations.

“I know you’re here,” he said. His voice came out strangled, hoarser than usual. He cleared his throat. Now she knew. “You’ve been here the whole time. You can go, if—if that’s what you want. I can hear your report in the morning, if you want. Or you can take your secrets with you. I already know you’re here, so you can walk out the door if it’s more convenient for you. Or… or you can stay.” He paused. “I’ll wait to have your answer.” His kept his eyes closed. Part of him realized this was a defense mechanism—he wouldn’t see the disgust on her face if she chose to leave through the door instead of out a window or however else she got in.

“And if I stay? What would you have me do?”

Her voice came from behind him, by the door. She couldn’t have been there when he entered or he would have seen her. She must have moved from her first hiding place. If he turned around and put out his arm, he would only have to take half a step to touch her. To touch her. He brought a hand to himself, cupping his length through the fabric, and let it fall again.

“Whatever you wanted,” he said. “Anything you wanted. You can leave. Or stay. Or… participate.”

He thought that he would pass out from wanting. Anything, anything. He wanted to be seen by her. He wanted her touch, too, but he knew that he couldn’t have that, so he would settle for being _seen_. He’d taken off his gloves in front of her before, he’d stripped to his trousers to wash before going back out for the night, but she never responded. At first it had been for convenience that he didn’t send her away before cleaning up, then a challenge, then masochism, reminding himself that this body wouldn’t provoke desire from her. She had never seen so much of him, though.

He had no goal or plan. Recklessness. Perhaps self-sabotage. A fuller rejection than ever before if she walked away now, when he was so exposed in more ways than one. Maybe he would open his eyes just in time to see it. She terrified him. She could break him open, always, but now she would know, if she didn’t before.

“Turn around.”

He did. He kept his eyes closed, but he could see her. He knew her so well. He imagined her braid falling from its bun; he imagined wrapping it around his fingers like silk cord, following it to cup her cheek. _Anything you wanted_ , he’d said. He hadn’t dared to imagine that she would want to be touched, but now... he couldn’t bear for this to be how she learned what he couldn’t give. He kept his hands by his sides, aching.

“I’m staying.”

He exhaled slowly and slid off the last of his clothes. The last time he had been completely undressed in front of someone must have been as a child being bathed, he thought. He had waited as long as he could. He took himself in his hand. Tomorrow, he would feel pathetic, weak. None of the other Dregs would consider this the same as _being with_ a woman, and neither did he, not really. This was… something else. It wasn’t the same as what he did alone in the morning, when he could count on being alone and unneeded for an hour before breakfast, though it wasn’t the same as _being with_ her either.

 _Her_. Inej, watching him. She hadn’t left. He hoped that meant that she liked something she saw. He knew he wasn’t altogether bad-looking. He was muscular, all hard lines and curves, but not bulky. His skin was clear, minimally scarred, typically not too bruised up anymore. He cut his own hair, but did fairly well at keeping it even, and at least it was thick. As far as he’d seen in flashes around the Slat and elsewhere in the Barrel, he thought his cock compared favorably enough. His hands were normal, despite expectations for a man never seen without gloves.

He moved slowly. This wasn’t the way he ordinarily handled himself, but ordinarily he wasn’t putting on a show, so he took his time. He thought about her standing a step-and-a-half away from him. He imagined her silently laying down her knives in a row, pulling them one after another out of her clothes. He imagined her unbuttoning her vest and her shirt, closing the distance between them so he could tuck his hands under the fabric—no, no, that was too much even to imagine; he was supposed to be putting on a _show_ , and that meant lasting.

“What do you think about?” she asked.

She was behind him now. On his four, which meant the bed. Not close enough to be standing beside him, which meant… on his bed. Not high enough to be above it, on a rafter. Sitting, perhaps, or maybe… He could picture it too clearly. Inej, lying on her side, her shirt and vest open, her head propped up on one hand, the fingers of her other hand sunk in her braid to work it loose, watching him.

She’d asked him a question.

“You,” he rasped.

“Turn around.”

He leaned heavily on his good leg to turn back to face the bed.

“Tell me.”

“Tell you?” He couldn’t breathe. Her voice had changed. She was in his bed. Any scent that she had, she would leave there. He might never sleep in his bed again, just lay there and breathe it in and then move to the fucking floor to keep from ruining it.

“Tell me what you see.”

He kept his eyes shut. She would tell him if she wanted to be seen. His Wraith preferred invisibility, to be the observer, and he would protect that. She would see him and hear him, and he would take nothing. “You,” he said again. “On my bed. Your shoes off, on the floor. I’ve never seen your feet. Who has?” Was that too close to mentioning the place where he’d found her? That wasn’t his intention. “You’re wearing what I saw you wearing this morning, but you’ve taken out all the knives. You put them out where I could see them. In reach. A semicircle around the head of the bed, pointing out towards me, like a halo. You’ve unbuttoned your vest and shirt. They’re open now, but you’re lying on your side, with your head on your hand, so I can’t see much of you at all. I just… know.”

He couldn’t go on or it would be over too soon. He paused his motion and changed to working his balls with his thumb. Speaking all of this out loud felt like blasphemy, like prayer. She could be mocking him, goading him. She could be waiting for him to be at his most vulnerable before she killed him and disappeared out the window, boarded a ship to Ravka, left. She would never be found. He kept the indenture certificate in his office, which she would know; she would kill him silently and have plenty of time to find the paperwork and burn it.

Or she could be… no. His breath hitched. He couldn’t think about that.

“How would you have me?” He couldn’t ignore the change in her voice, couldn’t be imagining it, even with his entire world in a fog. Rougher, lower—she sounded like his echo, his shadow.

“I would undress first, so you could see me. So you could see—what you do to me. I would slide my hand under your shirt. You’d have nothing else underneath.” He paused. “What would you… like?” He felt younger than twenty. He felt like a child. He felt hungry.

“Guess.”

“I… I’d start my hands at your ribs and kiss your throat. Under your chin.” He moved back to his original motion, but slowly, slowly. He ached. Somewhere in the pile of clothes on the floor in the other room was a handkerchief; he should have take it out first. That would have taken forethought, though. “I’d slide my hand to your… breast. And you’d turn to your back so I could reach the other, too. I’d kiss you, everywhere. Your jaw, your cheekbone, your ear, your eyebrow, your mouth.”

He would. He would. He couldn’t. He _would_. She was here. She was asking for him. Not today, but someday, he would, he would. He realized he had sped up.

He had never imagined further than this, further than the first touch, the first kiss. He wanted to see her undone. Wanting, then satiated. He had no idea how to get there. The slips of conversation around the Slat didn’t often turn on pleasure, not really—language of conquest instead. And once he was no longer a child—or less of one, anyway—the conversations around him stopped. Dregs watched their tongues around their strange lieutenant with gloves and a cane, Dirtyhands who was already ready to dirty them a little more.

He thought he knew enough, though. The rest, in time, he could learn—he would have her show him. With his hands and with her own. He would learn. Kaz Brekker was a quick study.

What to say, though. Two images blurred before his eyes: Inej as he thought she was, sitting on his bed, watching him, smirking; Inej as he hoped she would be, stretched out like a cat in the sun, her hair loose. Inej smirking would give him no assistance. This was a performance. How many corners had he talked himself out of? This was another.

“I’d kiss you while I touched you,” he whispered. “When I moved my hands down. Your jaw, your throat, not your mouth, so you could… instruct me.” She would be perfect. “But when I heard your breathing change, I’d lean away so I could see your face.” This was the end for him. The handkerchief was in a pile somewhere in the other room, but he would just have to deal with the cleanup. He let out a sound that wasn’t a word. He’d run out of them. He was past words.

“Kaz,” she said. He almost opened his eyes; he almost lost it right then.

“ _Inej_.”

“Look.”

And that was enough. That was the end.


	2. Inej

She waited for him in the darkness, the door locked from the outside, per the usual. Inej had secrets for him. Today they weighted more heavily towards romance than usual. A mercher’s wife whispering sweet nothings to a music teacher. A rival gang’s foot soldier wavering in his allegiances after being told not to see that girl anymore or she’d be found dead in a canal for distracting him. A few financial matters, too. A shopkeep begging for a loan, but refused. Kaz would lend him the money. He made beautiful hats. Some of the wares were obviously Fabrikator-made. A shopkeep with connections, and a good location on East Stave for a dead drop, with its secluded back passage that lead to a half-attic that couldn’t be seen from the front.

She’d felt when he came through the front door at the Slat—a ripple through everyone in the house as the Dregs stood a little taller—so he would be up to the top floor before long. Today she’d come in through the window overlooking the canal, and she waited in a shadow beside his bookshelf of old ledgers. Ostensibly, she concealed herself in case someone else broke through the door instead of him, so that she could dispatch the intruder and flee. But impractically, she wanted to see his eyes sweep across the room as he sensed her presence and found exactly where to look. She was invisible to anyone except Kaz, and she was reminded of that nightly. Although, she could feel invisible to him as well, at times. But that was a hazard of feeling anything for the bastard of the Barrel.

The lock clicked open and swung wide. Something was… off. Different. Kaz could fill a room with his presence, but usually he saved this for when he had an audience to intimidate. Alone, here, he was usually smaller. He didn’t look around as he usually did, either, looking for her. Inej stayed in her shadow in case someone else was coming up behind him, a Dreg that needed to be kicked into shape.

But instead, he locked the door behind him. He stripped off his gloves and left them at his feet. Usually he would match the thumbs together and lay them gently on his desk or beside the wash basin. She had never seen him remove his gloves anywhere but this room, in front of anyone but her, and she remembered every time she’d seen his perfect hands, a ropy scar from some long-ago fight and long, delicate fingers. He could have been a musician, a piano player, if he wasn’t… this. From time to time she felt a pang of regret that he wasn’t, but tonight, ferociously, she clung to the fact that the world that made her dangerous had made him dangerous, too.

Then he was tossing his coat over his desk, unbuttoning his waistcoat, pulling his shirt from his trousers and dispatching that too, moving like his clothes were burning him. Inej stayed hidden. Perhaps—perhaps he wasn’t aware of her, this time. Now she saw his visible arousal. Perhaps he’d seen something, someone, downstairs, and hadn’t realized her presence. He thought he was alone. He wanted to be alone. Her feet itched to flee back out the window. She had oiled the hinge a few nights ago to make her entrance and exit simpler. She could go now, and he would never know that she’d seen him like this. Reckless. That’s what it was. He was never reckless, he was always controlled, but that was the only word for it. But she didn’t move.

The trousers were next. He leaned against the doorframe for support as he unhooked them from his ankles one at a time. This was madness. He couldn’t be unaware of her. But perhaps he was. Without thinking of implications, of consequences, Inej silently scaled the bookshelf and crept along the top. From there she could hop to the top of the dividing wall that separated the bedroom from the office. Calling it two rooms was something of a stretch; the wall between them didn’t go all the way up to the pitched ceiling, and the doorframe between them had no door. From his bed he could see straight through to the top of the stairs. She followed him to the bedroom, creeping along the furniture above his head.

Inej was startled to see his eyes were closed. Then he leaned his cane against the doorway and stepped forward to the middle of the room.

“I know you’re here,” he said. She could have fallen off the wall in surprise. His voice was different. Strangled, like he couldn’t get enough air, like he had to fight to say it. He cleared his throat. “You’ve been here the whole time. You can go, if—if that’s what you want. I can hear your report in the morning, if you want. Or you can take your secrets with you. I already know you’re here, so you can walk out the door if it’s more convenient for you. Or… or you can stay.”

Stay. Stay here, with Kaz.

She hardly heard the other options.

She’d never seen, nor heard, about him being with a woman, nor a man for that matter. An anomaly among the Dregs, he kept to himself, he let no one draw near. If he ever found pleasure, it was alone. Women and men would flutter eyelashes at him; he ignored it the first time, and if that wasn’t enough, a cold word would ensure it didn’t happen again.

But here he was.

_Reckless_.

“I’ll wait to have your answer.”

Inej dropped silently to the floor and stood in the doorway behind him. His cane winked in the moonlight beside her. Her whole body felt very warm. She knew that warmth. It had taken time to welcome it, but Kaz had given her a private room at the Slat, with a door that locked, and after a time, she taught herself to call the warmth, the wave. He turned his head to face the canal to his left, but she knew his eyes were still closed. He was listening for her, she knew. He wouldn’t hear her. She could hear his ragged breathing. She thought she could see his pulse jumping at his throat.

“And if I stay? What would you have me do?” she whispered. She saw his shoulders straighten as he heard her voice, but he didn’t turn to face him. He passed a hand over his crotch, and she shuddered involuntarily.

She couldn’t touch him. She couldn’t be touched. Not… yet. She _wanted_ , but _what_ was unclear, except that she could spend an eternity memorizing the way the muscles of his back shifted with every subtle movement, memorizing every scar from every bad job and beat-down. He wore more than a decade of fights on his skin, always hidden under flash and expensive tailoring, but bared now. For her.

“Whatever you wanted,” he said. “Anything you wanted. You can leave. Or stay. Or… participate.”

Dirtyhands didn’t beg. But he sounded like he would keel over. He always had an angle. He was never reckless, always calculated. She could leave. She could walk out the door, slip out the window. He might not even know she had gone, until he did.

“Turn around,” she said instead. He leaned heavily into his good leg as he pivoted around. The blood rushed to her face as she saw him; she heard her heartbeat pounding in her ears so loudly she thought wildly that perhaps he heard it too. “I’m staying.” The words were out before she could think differently, think better about what it would do to her to see Kaz Brekker like this. She heard his breath catch and she thought she would die on the spot.

He exhaled slowly and slid off the last of his clothes. No doorframe this time; he didn’t move closer to her. The collar of her shirt felt too tight, her trousers too loose. His hand moved to his length, but she watched his face. She had never noticed how long his eyelashes were. How much tension he held at his jaw, until it was gone. His lips parted ever so slightly to allow out another sigh, and she imagined the sigh was her name. She imagined the sigh closer to her, right in her ear, his hand on her instead of himself, following her fingers…

She took four steps around him, on her toes, to land on his bed. She sunk silently onto the mattress. This was an invasion. It was overstepping. Kaz had his secrets; he told her that when he was rich enough she could steal them, but she’d never tried. She gave him his privacy. His mystery _R_ , a childhood obscured behind a lie of being Barrel-born, disappearances into the night. Was it that she feared what she might find? She had seen his cruelties already, but pointed her gaze away from his soft spots. Perhaps she feared she would find someone else in those shadows. But now she found herself flattening her body down his bed, breathing in the scent on his sheets. She wanted to writhe out of her clothes. Her heart pounded. She willed it to settle so she could better hear the quick catch of his breath, timed to his hand. She turned onto her side and unbuttoned her trousers.

“What do you think about?” she asked his back. She shut her eyes and imagined him closer, that breath by her ear. 

“You,” he rasped. The answer sent more of a jolt through her than her fingers as they reached the place she sought.

“Turn around.”

He turned back to face the bed.

“Tell me.” Could he hear it in her voice? He kept his eyes closed, and she knew he couldn’t hear her hand moving against the fabric. Would he somehow know what she was doing now, spreading the slickness her body made hearing his voice like this?

“Tell you?”

“Tell me what you see.” Her voice came out harsh, low. A command. She breathed in the smell from his sheets. Each word he spoke reverberated in her ears as she committed the cadence to memory.

You,” he said again. “On my bed. Your shoes off, on the floor. I’ve never seen your feet. Who has?” That made her smile. A woman in his bed and he thought of her feet. “You’re wearing what I saw you wearing this morning, but you’ve taken out all the knives. You put them out where I could see them. In reach. A semicircle around the head of the bed, pointing out towards me, like a halo. You’ve unbuttoned your vest and shirt. They’re open now, but you’re lying on your side, with your head on your hand, so I can’t see much of you at all. I just… know.” He knew her. He knew her. She could picture it, too. With her eyes trained on him, she saw him standing very still a pace and a half away, his feet welded to the floor in his socks, but in her mind’s eye she saw him bending over her, placing a knee on the bed. She felt the wave building under her fingers.

“How would you have me?” _What comes next, Brekker?_

“I would undress first, so you could see me. So you could see—what you do to me. I would slide my hand under your shirt. You’d have nothing else underneath.” He paused. “What would you… like?” With a man? As if she had ever known what she _liked_. Alone, yes, she’d cultivated that skill in private, but with a man, never, no. It had taken months for her to be able to stand a friendly pat on the shoulder from Jesper, a hug from Nina. Longer to reach between her thighs without fear her fingers would brush a tear or come away bloody or send her mind back there, put her back in silks. She didn’t imagine anything but his voice when she was alone. She had never imagined what he looked like under those suits; even once she’d seen his chest, his arms, they didn’t visit her fantasies. It was always just his voice, whispering her name. Not Wraith, or darling, or dearest, as he sometimes did to intimidate a rival who knew her reputation. Rock salt rasping over the _j_ with longing. Always him. Always the one she’d never see touch anyone, lead anyone back to his bed, always the one she knew, she _thought_ , she could never touch. She imagined his voice thick with desire, imagined what he would say to her, how he would shatter, the sounds he might make with that utterly unique voice. She’d imagined it wrong. She’d never been happier to learn a mistake.

But she wouldn’t tell him that. This was a one-way mirror.

“Guess,” she said, hoping that she sounded bolder than she felt. She felt like a child. She felt like a woman. Nineteen. Twenty soon. Had she thought she would ever reach it? Not for a long time. And then all at once, it had nearly arrived.

“I… I’d start my hands at your ribs and kiss your throat. Under your chin.” He moved back to his original motion, but even slower. “I’d slide my hand to your… breast.” He fumbled over the words. A muscle twitched in his jaw. Difficulty. Challenge. What was it? Speaking the words? Resisting the urge to touch her? The urge to speed up, end the story? “And you’d turn to your back so I could reach the other, too. I’d kiss you, everywhere. Your jaw, your cheekbone, your ear, your eyebrow, your mouth.”

Inej arched her back into her hand unexpectedly. The shadow Kaz’s fingers replaced hers in her imagining. Her lips had parted; had she let out a sound? The fingers of her other hand stumbled to undo the buttons on her vest, her shirt, to loosen the bindings underneath. The air was cold on her skin.

“I’d kiss you while I touched you,” he whispered. “When I moved my hands down. Your jaw, your throat, not your mouth, so you could… instruct me.” She almost laughed, but she was too close; she cut it off before it could come out as a gasp. “But when I heard your breathing change, I’d lean away so I could see your face.” He let out a sound that wasn’t a word.

“Kaz.” It was over. This was all. She could feel the ending arriving. _Finish the story_.

“ _Inej_ ,” he whispered. The way she imagined. That started the beginning of the end. She could feel herself coming undone.

“Look,” she got out before the gasps she’d never heard herself make. He did. He saw. He saw her with those bitter coffee eyes, and she saw his relieved smile that she’d never imagined as he lost the last of his control, too.

**Author's Note:**

> Well folks, in month... 10? Of quarantine? I wrote fic for the first time in more than 10 years. Hope you enjoyed.


End file.
